Mansoor Delane vs. Jermod McCoy: Making the Cincinnati Bengals' Case for Each Cornerback

As we move within one week of the NFL Draft, mock drafts from analysts who are plugged in to many teams across the league start to carry more weight.

Take, for instance, Wednesday when The Athletic’s Dane Brugler, ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. and The Ringer’s Todd McShay all had the Cowboys trading with the Browns to move from No. 12 to No. 6.

That can’t be coincidence.

Through the Cincinnati Bengals’ lens, the mocks are starting to focus on the team selecting a cornerback at No. 10, with both Brugler and Kiper putting LSU’s Mansoor Delane in stripes.

It’s not so much the case that the Bengals are in “cornerback or bust” mode, but rather that players such as safety Caleb Downs, linebacker Sonny Styles and edge rusher Rueben Bain Jr. are all going in the top nine picks.

The more interesting debate isn’t whether the Bengals would pass one of those three to take a cornerback.

It’s whether Delane or Tennessee’s Jermod McCoy would be the better choice if Downs, Styles and Bain are gone.

You can make an argument for either corner.

So let’s do so.

Making the Case for the Bengals To Draft Jermod McCoy

Starting with basics, McCoy is slightly bigger and longer, standing at 6 feet and .6 inches, a full inch taller than Delane.

McCoy also has the edge in arm length (31 5/8 to 30 ¾) and wingspan (77 to 74 3/4) and,

The Bengals put an emphasis on speed when selecting cornerbacks with premium, Day 1 or 2 picks.

Current starters Dax Hill (4.38) and DJ Turner II (4.26) were among the fastest in their respective classes.

The last corner the Bengals selected with a premium pick that ran the 40 in more than 4.4 was Darqueze Dennard in 2014 (4.51).

It’s essentially a push between Delane (4.38) and McCoy (4.40).

Also working in McCoy’s favor is his age. He’s still only 20 and won’t turn 21 until August.

Delane is 22 and will turn 23 in December.

But the younger age comes with far less experience, as McCoy played just 25 games, due mainly to missing all of 2025 due to an ACL injury suffered late in 2024.

Before getting hurt that season, McCoy had 13 passes defended and four interceptions and was voted second team All American while facing elite receivers in the SEC.

Pro Football Focus graded him as the eight best cornerback in country that season.

Among the seven ranked ahead of them, three of them were draft eligible in 2025. Two, Colorado’s Travis Hunter and Alabama’s Jahdae Barron, were first-round picks.

In McCoy’s first collegiate season at Oregon State, when he committed full time to playing defense, his first career interception was against Fernando Mendoza, the presumed No. 1 overall pick this year.

The Bengals have leaned more into traits over production with their recent first-round picks, and McCoy certainly has all the traits. His production has been solid in games he’s played, but only 18 career starts are a bit of a concern.

Of course, a similar discussion dominated the conversation two years ago when the Bengals drafted tackle Amarius Mims after just eight college starts.

And while Delane has nearly twice as many college games played overall, both corners only played one season in the SEC.

Making the Case for the Bengals To Draft Mansoor Delane

He doesn’t simply have more games played than McCoy, he has considerably more snaps in the slot, which is significant.

Drafting McCoy likely would force Hill back inside to play nickel corner. He hasn’t raised a stink in the past despite the Bengals moving him nearly every offseason, but at some point it has to get old.

And costly.

Hill and Turner will be free agents after the year, and nickel corners typically don’t get paid the way outside corners do.

Delane has 116 career snaps in the slot, while McCoy has 34.

And history aside, Delane’s skillset is better suited to use him as a nickel corner, where Jalen Davis, who spent most of last year on the practice squad, is currently slated to be the starter.

McCoy was a unanimous All American last year (LSU’s first since Joe Burrow in 2019), and he was PFF’s No. 3-ranked cornerback behind San Diego State’s Chris Johnson (another projected first-round pick) and Notre Dame’s Leonard Moore, who is expected to be in the 2028 class.

Delane faced three of the top receivers in the 2026 class last fall.

Ole Miss’ De’Zhaun Stribling: 2 catches, 14 yards

Alabama’s Germie Bernard: 3 catches, 79 yards

Texas A&M’s K.C. Concepcion: 3 catches, 75 yards, one TD

Concepcion’s touchdown didn’t come with Delane in coverage.

No one’s did. Delane did not give up a touchdown or commit a penalty during the entire 2025 season.

Though he lacks ideal size, Delane’s production is elite.

He had 13 passes defended and two interceptions last season after grabbing four picks with seven passes defended in his final season at Virginia Tech.

Another big check mark in the Delane column is health and rust and McCoy missed all of last year due to the ACL.

The cornerback debate is an interesting one that goes beyond just McCoy vs. Delane.

There’s a good chance there is no wrong answer, similar to the discussion that dominated talks before the 2021 draft with Ja’Marr Chase vs. Penei Sewell. Both have turned into elite pros.

Adding to the intrigue with Delane and McCoy is whether to even target a cornerback, regardless of which players go off the board ahead of them.

With Turner and Hill set to become free agents, the Bengals surely can’t let both walk away the way they did with starting safeties Jessie Bates and Vonn Bell after 2022.

Contract talks won’t begin in earnest until later this summer, but if the Bengals don’t feel good about retaining at least one of their two starters at the price they want, they might pick Delane or McCoy regardless of whether Bain, Downs, Styles are still available.

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